Conversations
by cassikat
Summary: A talk that SHOULD have taken place during Journey's End that would have changed everything.


Title: Conversations

Disclaimer: Is the Duplicate Doctor still stuck with Rose? Yes? Then I don't own it. More's the pity :P

Rated 'T' just in case, on account of talk of genocide and other potential violence.

AN: Telepathic conversations, with the Doctor in plain italics, Handy in italics with underline. Not Rose-friendly. And yes, this really is a one-shot. My very first one-shot...I'm a bit scared. ;) Concept brought up in the second conversation is not mine, a lot of people have had it, latest to my awareness being tkelparis. (edited to fix an Americanism that tardis-mole pointed out)

* * *

><p>Conversations<p>

* * *

><p><em><span>You're thinking on how to punish me, aren't you?<span>_

_You committed genocide. Are you saying you DON'T deserve to be punished?_

_I saved the universe. That Dalek Empire, even without the Reality Bomb, was big enough to rip the universe to shreds._

_Don't. Don't you dare._

_I am you, after all. Your memories, your personality. Your same determination to save the universe no matter the personal cost. I'm also part-Donna, and if she hadn't been in shock at the moment, she would have helped me. Just like she helped you in Pompeii._

_I warned you. Leave Donna out of this - it's between you and me!_

_I can't leave Donna out of it - I'm part her! Half my DNA came from her, that's why I'm half-human!_

_You need someone to settle you down. Help you be a better man._

_Oh don't. Don't you DARE! Don't even THINK about leaving me with Rose!_

_Why not? She helped me after the Time War. You've my memories, you should remember that. And how I feel about her._

_You mean 'felt' about her. Go on, prove me wrong. Pull her aside and tell her you love her._

_...I..._

_You can't, can you? You can't even think the words, and I know why. Because you DON'T love her anymore. You love Donna._

_Don't. Stop, just stop._

_You love Donna, and you're only fond of Rose. Now think. I have your current emotions - very fond of Rose, although my tolerance is diminishing by the second thanks to some thinking I've been doing. And you're going to just dump me with a girl who never grew up, never even tried to move on. No, she just obsessively continued to try and get back to you. That's not love on her part, even if she thinks it is. It's possessiveness and jealousy. And thanks to my Donna-part, I can't live with that. Think a minute. What would Donna do to Rose, if they were stuck together and Rose started pouting and wouldn't stop?_

_...she'd slap her. And so would you, and you're stronger._

_Yeah. I might end up hurting her badly. And...I'm still just fond enough of her to not want to do that. Even if I -have- started thinking that, with her obsession, she's been universe-jumping longer than she claimed._

_WHAT?_

_Think about it. Think about how sly she looked when she said 'it suddenly started working'. She wasn't being totally honest...well, I don't think she was. It's been a long time since she tried to lie to us...well, to you. But...well, the part of me that is Donna - you know, that wonderful human instinct? It says to double-check - that we have to be sure that she wasn't hopping long before that. Because if she was...well, you know what that cannon did to the walls between universes._

_It cracked them...and eventually the walls would shatter like glass._

_Exactly. Now, how can I live with a woman I suspect of potentially destroying several universes in her obsession?_

_You can't. And...I couldn't either. All right - I won't dump you on Rose. Ideas on how to find out exactly what she did?_

_Simple enough, and if you weren't reeling - and I'm sorry for shaking your view of Rose, by the way - you'd have thought of it too. Just collect those dimensional jumpers and use them to home in on the cannon. Should be a computer there we can hack and find out what we need to know._

_Good plan. And...thank you. _

_You're thanking yourself, you know._

_Hah! Half me, half Donna, you said so yourself. I should leave you with Martha and Jack, let you figure out who you really are._

_Not Jack! He'd flirt with me - and he smells wrong!_

_Nahh, really? Maybe I -should- leave you with him as your punishment then, since you dislike the thought so much._

_You better not. Not until we understand the nature of the Human-Time Lord metacrisis a bit better. There's never been one, and the accepted theory is that's because there CAN'T be one._

_Oh. Oh no - oh, Donna...what have I done?_

_Obviously the theory is wrong, a bit - look at me. But we won't let her die. We'll fix it...somehow. As soon as we understand it. Meanwhile, Earth's back in place, and we need to start getting people home._

_Yeah. We'll do that. And we'll figure out what Rose was actually doing._

_Thanks. I won't be able to rest easy until that horrible suspicion is proved one way or the other._

* * *

><p><em>...I still can't understand it. How could she be so STUPID as to ignore all the damage she was doing? <em>

_Obsession and jealousy can make anyone blind. And with her so self-centred to begin with...well, what she wanted, she went after without caring about the consequences._

_Pearls of wisdom from your Donna side? _

_More like integrating your more than a millennia of experience with Donna's innate knowledge of humanity, but yeah. Come on, we've...well, you've known a lot of people like that. Remember the Rani and how obsessed she was?_

_Yes, of course I do. But she changed during the War...oh now what is this?_

_I was thinking about the way she was before the War. What's what...oh bugger, that's not good. Not good at all._

_No, it's not. Cracks in time as well as in the walls between universes...blimey, that's going to take a long time to fix._

_Yeah, tell me about it. At least now we know how Caan got into the Time War to rescue Davros though._

_At least that one sealed itself back up - it's just the rest we're going to have to work on._

_A bit later though. We still have to build something to drain the excess energy from Donna so she won't burn until that baby's old enough to take the Time Lord mind from her._

_Well, that second heart had to go somewhere, didn't it? Good thing she accepted taking a lie-down to think about it in the med-bay so we can keep monitoring her, instead of in her room. You go keep an eye on things there, I'll deal with the creating._

_First part of my punishment, huh? Let Donna yell at me for her being pregnant with my infant twin?_

_If you want to look at it like that, yeah. Go on, get it over with._

_Yeah, yeah, I'm going...Dad. Maybe I can get her to name me, since I've sort of started thinking of myself as someone other than you._

_Out! Out you cheeky bugger!_


End file.
